“For example, in Montero, more than a million quintals of hidden rice have been carried out, five mills that have been intervened, on December 6th (…)”, revealed the Minister of the Presidency, María Nela Prada, who explained to the state channel Bolivia TV that the control operations intervened five mills, seizing more than 45 thousand quintals of it.

The Minister indicated that the government took actions that included requesting precautionary measures and confiscating the product by a judge’s order, following Article 71 of the Penal Code. She also reported that a fair price will be paid to the owners of the confiscated rice, for its subsequent commercialization also at a fair price to the final consumer in the domestic market.

Prada said it is “inconceivable” that rice should be stored to increase its price in the domestic market or smuggled (in reverse) to neighboring countries when the producers themselves reported that the product did not exist due to the effects of the climate crisis. He also stressed that everyone has the right to earn what they deserve, but one cannot commit the crime of profiteering, hoarding, or concealing food.

Regarding the artificial shortage of edible oil in the domestic market, Prada warned that demand represents less than 20 percent of total production and denounced that there are “sabotage and shortage operations” with something as sensitive as the food security of Bolivian families.

“(…) some unscrupulous people who, unfortunately, for political or economic interests, hide the product to wait for the price to rise and earn more at the cost of harming the population,” she stressed. The Minister of the presidency ratified that there is an “economic war” related to “sabotage operations and shortages” that are not accidental and respond to a strategy of attrition, of weakening the country at a political level.

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